Shooting Star
by Innocent Magic
Summary: In the aftermath of Fred's accident in the battle, George and Hermione need each other. Life is always going to be complicated. SEQUEL to Too Bloody Noble.


**A/N** Hello! Usually I try to avoid these notes at the top of my chapters, but important news. Yes, this is the long awaited sequel to my Fred/Hermione ' _Too Bloody Noble_ '. It's vital you read that first. Honestly, there are several parts of this won't make sense unless you read that first.

I had your reviews to _Too Bloody Noble_ open on my screen as I typed this, so take that as a sign I love feedback! The more I hear back from readers, the more inspired I am to get on with the story.

 _Shooting Star_ is going to be longer than _TBN_ , both in number of chapters and their lengths. This is my full time project this summer! So with that...

* * *

 **Chapter One: Overcast**

 _Pretty, if the sun won't shine, I'll be coming out to meet you._

Three months.

Three months since Fred had been hit by that bloody wall and everything had changed. Before the Battle, George had laughed off his twin's melancholy 'what ifs'. Now he was living the biggest 'I told you so' of all.

From his position on the sofa, he could see Hermione – glorious witch – deep in thought. The bird on his shoulder gave his ear an affectionate peck, and he groaned at the herd of hippogriffs figuratively stampeding across his head.

Closing his eyes, he tried not to hear the way Hermione's breath was hitching every so often, becoming laboured and heavy. These past three months, he'd found he preferred if people ignored when he cried. The sadness was just a bit too personal and private.

His... housemate had never suggested she was any different.

So he lay silently on her sofa and buried his face deeper into the cushions, trying to block out that infernal sunlight and the heart-wrenching grief of the woman who put up with him.

Few women would let their lover's twin hide from the world – their jobs, their friends, their family – and not go insane. Not once had she raised her voice at him. She'd never forced him to do anything he wasn't willing to, never pushed him too far to 'recover' (as his mother called it).

How are you supposed to recover from an event like this? Recovery implied he could be whole again. George was pretty sure someone had punctured him during the battle so that all emotion had drained from his system. Maybe he could be patched up, the hole covered, but even magic wasn't enough to repair and refill him.

For letting him wallow, letting him be sad, _letting him_ be, Hermione Granger was a bloody saint.

Until she started shaking his shoulder once more.

"Come on, George," she whispered. Her warm hand took hold of his clammier one, linking their fingers. "I think we should go see him today."

"You sure?" he asked, annoyed by how cracked his voice sounded.

"Yeah," Hermione replied. "I think it's time to start looking for closure."

George gulped. Something in her posture concerned him. She looked as ready as ever to take on the world, and yet, she was undeniably scared of something.

He couldn't blame her. Closure was another item on a long list of things for which he wasn't ready. Closure meant giving up, moving on. All George wanted was to go back in time, back to 8.47pm on May 5th, and push his twin out of the way of that _stupid, blasted wall_.

"George?" she tried again, gentle and just so Hermione. "Please?"

No wonder Fred had never been able to resist her.

He nodded, almost unnoticeably, and struggled against his tired limbs to stand up. Then he gives her The Look. It's a look he's worn near constantly since he unofficially moved into her living room, a look of 'what now?'

Hermione was the only one who didn't fuss over him when he wore that look. She helped him work out what do to, but never molly-coddled him for his dependence. Maybe it was the teacher in her, or maybe it was just another part of her angel-costume.

"He won't want to see you in that state," she said. The corner of her lips flickered, just slightly, but the smile had died before it made it out.

Another nod, and then George was slouching his way to her bathroom.

He knew the way by now. It was the first room he'd seen, after showing up through her floo drunk out of his mind. She'd frog-marched him to the bathtub and sat beside him while he sobered up.

It was also the first room she'd redecorated with him in mind. By the third time he'd turned up, unwashed since his previous visit, she had removed any reflective surface from the bathroom. No more mirror. No more polished taps. He didn't have to see his twin looking back at him any more.

In the back of his mind, George knew he was being selfish. She'd done so much to accommodate him, and he was a walking reminder of the best friend he grieved. Briefly, he'd contemplated changing his features – brown hair, brown eyes, no freckles.

That would feel too much like erasing Fred for good though.

By the time he was clean, Hermione had set him up a plate of breakfast and moved on to her first task of the day. Other than mothering him, of course.

"What are you doing?" he asked, voice still croaking with lack of use.

"Hmm?"

She was leaning over the breakfast counter, three sheets of parchment laid out around her, her neat script filling each of them.

He gestured as such.

"Oh!" Hermione exclaimed, stopping mid-word. "Rearranging some appointments, that's all."

Once more, a nod. All he ever seemed to do.

That _guilt_ was rising in him again, boiling and bubbling and making him feel sick. How could he take advantage of her so easily? How could she be so _good_ to him when he was a bloody miserable bastard moping about her flat uninvited. What would Fred –

There was the problem: Fred. What would Fred say? Well nothing, right now, that's what.

The fire inside, the shame, subsided immediately.

The numb half-life returned.

For ten minutes, George picked half-heartedly at his toast, each tiny bite lodging in his throat and making him cough. Pathetic, he thought. But he couldn't bring himself to care.

Then came the small hand on his arm, the soothing voice.

"You finished?" Hermione asked. "I thought we could leave at half nine, if you're ready?"

He took the jacket she offered and walked behind her to the fireplace. His stomach heaved from breakfast. His mind was a mess at the thought of visiting Fred.

All of it, everything, was building and rising and churning and just getting _too much_. His breaths were harsh and quick. Painful. A buzz rose in his ears and his eyes closed in an attempt to shut it out. Shut it up. Stop the noise and the pain and the-

"George!"

He jumped.

"George," said the voice again, the angel's voice. "George, calm down love. Breathe with me, come on. Just breathe."

As the panic ebbed away, he found himself sitting on the floor again, leaning back against the wall by the fireplace with his head tucked under Hermione's chin. Her hand ran through his hair slowly, in time with her instructions to breath in, and out. In. Out.

"We don't have to take the floo," she told him. "Fancy a walk?"

Without quite managing to meet her eyes, George tried to sound as sincere as he felt: "Thank you. Yes."

And that was that. She took his arm, and they were off out the door before the blush had fully developed on his cheeks.

It wasn't far from Hermione's flat to St Mungos, and she didn't mind admitting that it was intentional. If anything happened, if there was any news, she wanted to be as close as possible.

Even if there would never be any news, she had spent nine months apart from her... there was no label for them, not really, and best friend no longer seemed enough. Still, they had been separated for so long by the war, that she couldn't bare to be so again.

Neither was aware of the looks they received from those they passed – mothers returning from the school run, joggers on their way to the park, a trio of older women heading into town for Doris' birthday. Pitying looks. Wondering looks.

Who wouldn't wonder at the pair, both grey faced and downcast and dispirited?

It was a peaceful, George mused, and not for the first time he appreciated all the little things he'd never realised about Hermione. Despite Fred's insistences, he'd still always viewed her as a bossy know-it-all, someone who wouldn't stop talking until they'd proven themselves. Not necessarily bad qualities, but not attractive to him either.

He'd liked her for the way she made Fred smile, for the way she helped save Ron's arse time after time, but he hadn't thought about her as an individual.

Now? She was _his_ saviour this time (because he wasn't a liar, so he wouldn't pretend he hadn't been contemplating something reckless that first night). She was patient; she was calm and tender. Most of all, she gave him silence when he needed it.

Her arm linked with his was that tether to the real world he needed to keep living.

Her nervous quarter-smile when they reached the entrance to the hospital was that reason he needed not to run away and deny what lay beyond the doors.

Her watering eyes were an unnecessary reminder of what they were doing, who they were visiting. They were the trigger he needed to man up and bring her into a hug. And he wouldn't say aloud, but he felt just a little bit proud of himself that he did the right thing, and held her to his chest without breaking down himself.

He was a joke.

A cough from behind them broke their trance.

They were pushed aside by a large man, moustache and jacket not unlike those of Slughorn. "Excuse me," he grunted. "Ta."

Hermione took a step back, and George watched in admiration as she steeled herself. Head eye, eyes still red, she followed the oafish man into the reception area.

The ladies behind the counter were far too perky for this overcast a morning, and this kind of ward, George decided.

"How can we help you?" asked the first of the two, a blond with the kind of figure he'd drooled over as a teenager.

Brave Gryffindor he was, he let Hermione speak.

"I wrote ahead. Visitors for - Fred Weasley," she replied brusquely. George saw through the bluster, noticed the small hiccup as she stumbled over Fred's name. The ladies, thankfully, did not.

"Family?" she asked.

"Not – not quite," said Hermione.

"Ah," sighed the second lady. "I'm afraid we've had to get a bit stricter on non-family visitations after the dragon pox outbreak down in Plymouth."

Hermione's face didn't change its expression, but her shoulders dropped just enough for George to notice.

"So when-?"

"You're welcome to come back at 3," offered the woman.

"Three?"

"That's right, yes."

"Oh."

And the whimper held behind that word would have broken George's heart if it hadn't been out of service.

He coughed.

"Excuse me?" he questioned, having to project more than was comfortable in order to be heard.

The ladies' heads turned to him, and he felt uncomfortable under their stares. They probably meant well, sure, but George knew the meaning of their glances.

 _Poor soul's ill. Bet he used to be cute. Looks like death. Tortured soul. Shame it's gone to waste._

He paused.

"I'm family. She's as good as."

And no more than three minutes and twenty six seconds later, they were being let into room 424.

It looked like any other hospital room, blindingly white and sterile. Hopeless. A window, a cabinet and a bed gave the room what little character it had (though with a view of grey clouds and a patient with grey face, it wasn't exactly better than nothing).

There, in the centre, lay Fred.

Stupid bugger, George cursed. Too brave, too reckless, _stupid bugger_ for getting himself in that situation. The wall and the curse and the aftermaths, all of it was _stupid_. There was no other word for it.

And now Fred lay comatose, unchanged from three months ago, glowing slightly from the magic that kept him alive.

The Healers couldn't say whether or not he'd ever wake up. All they knew was that he wasn't dead, no matter how corpse like he appeared with his face so much paler than it should be, his arms void of muscle, his eyes closed.

Eyes closed.

For three months, George had been blaming everyone. It was Percy's fault for not stopping it. The Healers' faults for not saving him. His fault for not being able to _do_ anything.

That bastard Death Eater's fault, more than anything. But he was dead. Ron had made sure of that.

So there was Fred. And there was George, taking slow, determined steps to the bedside and staring down at his brother's closed eyes and thinking how pointless life was without a twin.

And there was Hermione, frozen in the doorway, not ready.

They'd been in this room before, visited Fred regularly, but it never got easier. Still, George wondered what had Hermione looking so pained. She was the strong one, right? She was the capable, unstoppable witch and he was meant to be the broken mess on her sofa.

Yet she hadn't made to actually enter the room, instead clutching a piece of parchment to her chest and blinking to try and stop her tears.

"Hermione?" he asked cautiously.

She raised the parchment an inch, enough. "He wrote to me, George," she choked. "He wrote to me and I thought everything was okay, but it's not."

"No," he replied. "It's not."

They held each other's gaze a moment before turning back to look at the man on the bed. The scars were gone, healed by magic. The bones had been reset within moments. It was the brain damage that chilled him; even if Fred did wake up one day, would he be the same?

"I can't –" said Hermione. She ran.

One moment she was there, a comforting presence to George even if she wasn't able to be within five feet. The next, she had disappeared. He caught a glimpse of her unmistakable brown curls whipping around the corner to his left.

Torn, he took a deep breath. Stay with his twin, or follow his angel? Barely ten seconds had passed before he was chasing after her.

They had travelled two floors before he caught her up. She'd become distracted by the maternity ward, all the tiny fingers and toes curling innocently under pastel blankets. They weren't terrified, were they? Were the new-borns feeling as weak as Hermione and George did?

Hermione's fingers were tracing unintelligible patterns over the glass that separated the babies from the public. Her eyes held that same look of loss he'd seen reflected back at him in mirrors until he'd broken them all.

"I can't do it, George," she murmured, so quietly he almost didn't catch it.

His hands dug into his pockets uncomfortably.

"We have to, for him and mum and Teddy," he replied. "That's what you've been telling me all this time, right?"

She gave a bitter laugh.

"I wasn't sure you'd been listening."

That searing sense of guilt rose in his throat, burned his eyes.

"Course I listened. A fool would know to listen when Hermione Granger talks."

Another laugh, less bitter this time but still hollow. George walked over to her, footsteps squeaking on polished hospital floor. Tentatively, he wrapped one arm around her shoulder. Then the other.

She clung to him as he had to her for so many nights. As she had outside the entrance to Mungos.

"Hey," he whispered, still holding her close. "You know I'm here for you, yeah?"

He felt her nod against his chest, but her heart wasn't in it. Not that he could blame her if she didn't believe him.

"I mean it," he said more seriously. "I might be buggered, but I'm here if you need me. Any time, angel."

A small sniffle.

Her quiet question. "Angel?"

His rare smile. "It suits you."


End file.
